Madonna Signs The Record Deal That Everyone Expected Her To

So it's a done deal - Madonna has signed the $120 million record deal with Live Nation that'll ensure she'll keep wriggling around in purple gynotards and pretending she's not a middle-aged woman for another decade.

While it's not exactly a surprise - the whole world more or less knew that Madonna was probably going to sign a new record deal soon - it does mark a potentially watershed moment in Madonna's career. From now on, Live Nation will take a share of not only Madonna's record sales, but also her tours, merchandise, DVDs, sponsorships, TV shows, films and websites - which will also help Madonna get in touch with the youth again. Because now that a share of everything Madonna does is going to Live Nation, the kids know that - by downloading a song by a slightly embarrassing elderly singer - not only are they getting three minutes of forgettable pop but they're also helping to fund the growth of the monster truck industry.

And, come on, who doesn't love monster trucks?

The music industry is in a state of flux at the moment, with nobody seeming to know what the future holds. Some artists are giving their albums away free with newspapers, some are only selling their CDs in coffeshops and others are letting the fans pay whatever they want for their stuff. But Madonna knows what she wants from the future - she wants to carry on trying to reverse the ageing process by dressing up in tiny clothes and writhing around like an attention-starved newly-divorced 50-year-old in a provincial town's only nightclub after one too many goldfish bowls of Flirtini. Oh, and $120 million. Madonna would quite like that, too.

Now that she's been in the music industry long enough to qualify for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, many were expecting Madonna's next album to be her last before she retired to spend her days contentedly looking back on the time that she destroyed her bones on a horse or made the Pope really blinking angry. Looking back, though, that seems completely irrational - after all, given the choice would you retire if it meant spending all day every day in a house with Guy Ritchie? - and it was announced that Madonna was on the verge of signing a 10-year, $120 million deal with Live Nation, the events company with fingers in everything from monster trucks to Glastonbury to the touring production of Mamma Mia!. And now, as BBC News reports, the deal has been done:

Madonna has signed a ground-breaking recording and touring contract with concert promoter Live Nation. She is the first major star to choose an all-in-one agreement with a tour company over a traditional record deal. It gives Live Nation rights to all her music-related projects - including new albums, tours, merchandise, websites, DVDs, sponsorship, TV shows and films. "The paradigm in the music business has shifted and as an artist and a businesswoman, I have to move with that shift," the singer said. "For the first time in my career, the way that my music can reach my fans is unlimited. I've never wanted to think in a limited way and with this new partnership, the possibilities are endless."

Ah, you've got to love popstars that use words like 'paradigm', haven't you? Anyway, as this is the first major deal of its kind to be signed, nobody really knows how it'll turn out. Since Madonna's tours are massively lucrative affairs, it's thought that Live Nation will do fairly well out of it, although it does all hinge on the notion that the public will keep supporting Madonna's demented quest to keep chasing every single vaguely new musical trend in an attempt to appear relevant, even when she's 60.

But, hey, even if the next decade does see Madonna's musical career dry up, Live Nation has got that covered too - it'll take a share of any movies or TV shows Madonna makes too. That means that next time Madonna wants to do another Swept Away or dismal Will & Grace guest spot, Live Nation gets a a cut. Everyone's happy, except for Live Nation which can't expect any Madonna movies to actually do very well, Madonna who'll get critically brutalised the next time she steps in front of a camera and any of us poor bastards who end up paying to see Madonna to act in anything at all. 

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Madonna Signs Radical Record Deal - BBC